


A Sovereign Remedy

by AcreCalm



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Cherno Alpha feelings y'all, Comfort Sex, Drift Bond, Drift Side Effects, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I have plenty, Someday, Someday I'll otp something that is canon and has a ton of character interaction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcreCalm/pseuds/AcreCalm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen hours with anyone is enough to change a person.</p><p>Eighteen hours in the Drift, and you have no choice in the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sovereign Remedy

They stumbled out of medical as if they were too drunk to walk, leaning heavily on one another in a way their pride would usually scorn.

The doctors had told them how long the drift was, but their minds were so full that it slipped away within moments every time the fact was repeated, marveled over.

 

Anyone could explain the theory of the Drift.

 

To explain the actual experience was impossible.

 

And this, whatever it was that now made them feel stripped raw and vulnerable now that they weren’t, that made it impossible to do anything but cling desperately to one another.

Physical closeness was fragile, so fragile…

Anyone could pull them apart, force them along separate paths. Remove them from themselves.

 

Near every team had a post-Drift ritual that would help their minds and their bodies acclimate to again being two beings, rather than one housed in a shell built for war. All of them were tactile.

 

It was a crude imitation of the absolute singularity that occurred in the Drift, but touch was the closest thing there was.

 

They -- there were no names anymore; names were for separate people and now there was only _he_ and _she_ , as biology dictated -- had been one; whole for so long that it felt wrong not to be and their touches were frantic.

 

_Are you still there? Are you there?_

 

_Yes; yes I am here. Are you? Are you with me?_

 

 

The ragged remnants of the Drift usually faded within minutes; but this had yet to wane. They felt thoughts, intents, emotions and urges. And above all, need.

 

Neither could pilot Cherno Alpha alone. And that knowledge that without the other with them deep in the heart of their beloved war machine they would be crippled, useless and orphaned seeped into every facet of their minds.

 

Without their partner, they were _nothing_. And now, everything felt so distant as to almost be painful with loss.

 

_I want…_

 

_I know._

 

_I need--_

 

_I know, I know._

 

 

Both were peeling themselves out of the under drive suits as quickly as they could. Touch was all they had, and the thin fabric, damp and chilled with sweat from their exertions, was keeping them apart.

They couldn’t be apart, not anymore.

 

_I can’t lose you._

 

_You never will._

 

When they tumble onto the bunk from exhaustion, it almost seemed as if she was trying to crawl inside his ribs, with how she curled so tightly, so completely against him. His arms came up around her, and the feel of her skin soothes some of the panic in them both. They seize, cling, entwine. Their grips adjust constantly, trying to pull tighter and hold more securely, as if they could possibly be closer.

 

And it’s not enough. It’s not enough and they’ve never been so alone. It’s not enough and their souls are crying out in despair. It’s not enough and-- she takes two fistfuls of his hair to drag him away from where he had buried his face into her neck and her mouth catches his, brutal and tender and tragic.

 

 

_I need you._

 

_You have me._

 

 

For some time, the only ghosts of thoughts that pass between them are _yes_ and, _more_.

 

So she grips tight at the muscles of his arms, maps down his chest and traces over the sharp black lines of tattoos spilling from his shoulders onto his back. He learns the curve from her ribs to her hips, and then reviews it just to be sure before kissing down her neck, because he has to know if her skin tastes like her breath. He has to know everything, to be sure that this is indeed the person who had so fully completed him not too long before, to know that she was indeed still with him.

 

 

_I’m here._

 

_Me too._

 

 

The shared physical sensations of the drift are few, but enough that she almost feels she already recognizes the jaw beneath the beard and her hands, like she had trimmed the dark hair along the line of it many times before; he the feel of her hair as he carefully undoes the elaborate plaiting so that it falls below her shoulders, ripples from being tied for the entire day.

 

Frantic longing and pleading desire roiled together, amplified between them until they reach the breaking point at the exact same moment.

 

 

_I need--_

 

_I know._

 

 

She lifts herself from where she is sprawled across his chest, knees slipping to either side of his hips. As they join -- sliding together in a bizarre, sideways sort of neural handshake -- her forehead presses to his.

 

They shared breath; and then everything else.

 

They had gone past the point of exhaustion, in the Jaegar. To the second wind, and to the point that to be anything but entangled was wrong. This was a different sort of bind.

 

Nonetheless:

 

_Yes._

 

One thought, one feeling as they were again one mind.

 

 

_Yes._

 

 

She rises up on her knees, sinks back down and they both sigh. It’s not the Drift, it’s something absolutely different. But it’s enough.

 

Better, once her chest is again pressed to his with her arms up under his shoulders and one of his hands on her lower back and the other in her hair to keep her forehead to his. So that if either opened their eyes, all they would see was each other.

 

Whimpers and long moans filled the air, and it no longer mattered who made them because his thrusts were powerful; long and deep, and she was rolling her hips, circling and canting into it because there was no way she could match the movements themselves.

 

He catches her lips and swallows the sharp, broken cry she makes when it all becomes too much, and stays that way so that she can do the same for him moments later. The force of their joint release leaves them shuddering, holding onto each other for dear life and gasping in ecstasy; near sobbing with fulfillment.

  


They fall asleep with tangled limbs that match the state of their minds, sheets damp and skin slick with their sweat.

 

When they wake, they check to see if it is still enough, and it is.

  
  
  


_Stay._

  


_Forever._

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a reference to Ray Bradbury's _Medicine for Melancholy._


End file.
